Erik Reichenbach was born and raised in Pinckney, Michigan. He is currently in his senior year of studying art at Eastern Michigan University, and is a member of the college's track team. Reichenbach works at an ice cream parlor called "Screams" in Hell, Michigan, where he also designs t-shirts, hauls canoes and entertains his customers. He previously worked in landscaping, construction and as a freelance graphic designer.

Reichenbach's hobbies include drawing, writing comic books, rock-climbing and studying philosophy/religion. He describes himself as animated, earnest and familiar. He is very proud of his running accomplishments during his senior year of high school, where he set the school's 400 yard record (49.3 seconds), and being able to run in the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Carolina. Reichenbach is a member of the Eastern Michigan Cross Country and Track team, Pinckney Pirate Track and Field Alumni and a rock climbing club.

Reichenbach believes he'll go far on SURVIVOR because he is a good listener, entertaining, optimistic, athletic, a creative thinker and can easily be a leader or a follower.

Reichenbach is currently single and lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan, with his cats, Furrball and Kittyfizzle (K-Fizz for short). His birth date is November 27, 1985.

So I went away to compete in Survivor this fall (October-December) and had to get a bunch of incompletes in all my classes,.. one of them being a research and composition writing class. To make a long story short me and teacher agreed I could make up the class by writing a report based on fieldwork experience: basically writing a research paper where the research is based on firsthand experience rather then outside text sources and internet pages.

Since I am bound contractually by CBS not to disclose any information concerning the Survivor experience (an extremely interesting topic in my opinion), I decided on another equally interesting topic.

I am to record my experiences after the show, in terms of this mild piece of celebrity that arrives with appearing on national television. At first I didn't think it would go beyond my close family, friends, and die-hard survivor fans. Although the show hasn't even aired yet, I can see it's much bigger then that.

Some of the first congrats came from my hometown papers; the Livingston County Press posted my giant face on the front page, and the Ann Arbor News featured a front page article as well. After these media outlets came random people asking me about the show in person, total strangers approached me and asked me about the experience, one even nicknamed me "Hollywood". I never even went to Hollywood!

Early on I was aware of a website called "SurvivorSucks". Despite the name, the site is a massive spoiler and fan site devoted to both making fun of the contestants on the show and dishing the dirt on rumors of the upcoming season. To give you a good idea of what can be expected on the site, I have so far been called a homosexual, symptomatic of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a butterface, ugly, fugly, and a handful of other derogatory statements despite ever meeting any of the people posting. I should be grateful; however, as other castaways are ridiculed and mocked much worse then myself.

Despite "Sucks" attitude, I understood this kinda crap was going to happen by going on the show. If I didn't want to be judged I wouldn't have taken up the challenge,.. I'm aware they have a camera on you 24/7 and they're going to show a bad side of you at one point or another. I see "Sucks" as the harshest of the harsh in terms of people casting judgment on you, so it can only go up from there. Everyone else in my life has been incredibly supportive, and their opinion matters more to me then an internet forum devoted to watching television.

No offense to "sucks",.. they're all fucking funny.

A lot of people are really scared of being depicted in a bad light, which I think is ridiculous. We're all human and we all make mistakes and look ugly at some point or another,.. some more then most.I'm gonna keep going with this and see where it gets me. I can only hope for the best.

Alright, things are starting to heat up. It's a little over one week away from the Micronesia premier and I'm starting to feel the effects taking place.

While running yesterday along the far-side of campus a driver yelled from his car,"SURVIVOR!" and sped off before I could figure out who it was. I'm not sure if they were serious or joking, but I decided not to chase them down to find out. At the local dining commons on campus (DC1) I frequently have people giving me strange looks, or whole tables pointing me out as I walk by to get some food. At this point I'm not sure how many people on campus know or stay up with the show, they could just be easily pointing at me and saying,"Holy shit look at that ball of gigantic hair" or,"Nice shorts, wtf is wrong with that guy?" The same kid who called me "Hollywood" before somehow always finds me on the way out and let's me go with his now standard,"Seeya Hollywood." Who is this guy?

I'm somewhat happy to say I have my first groupie. Starting sometime last week on Facebook a girl named "Lili" has been messaging me almost daily wanting to get into my pants and dirty-talking me. She lives about a stones-throw away in Quebec, Canada, but I really am not down for the whole internet hook-up scene. I like to meet a person face to face and get to know them before we start cyber-sexing eachother up. For all I know it could be a newspaper tabloid hiding behind a fictional girl's profile.

So far things are looking up.

I've felt some negative things from the fame as well. I'm not at liberty to say much, but I've had some problems at school regarding "false information" when I dropped out of school in the Fall to participate on the show. I knew when I made the desicion to go on the show I would run into some academic and athletic difficulties, so I'm not to shocked or upset over it. Just one more thing to deal with.

On another note, one of the most fun things to watch is the spoiler forums. Before I applied for the show I went on a lot of fan forums myself, and tried to predict how the seasons would play out. Now, being on the inside, its very fun to watch the forums try and put the pieces together from the season. I feel a bit like God watching his children discover things for the first time and make mistakes for the first time.

Hey Will, maybe you need to invite Erik to visit RFF. We're much nicer to hang out with (and less scary) than the sucky site. I just can't bring myself to visit there anymore, too much negative energy in one place for me. Thanks for keeping us updated on Erik.

Hey Will, maybe you need to invite Erik to visit RFF. We're much nicer to hang out with (and less scary) than the sucky site. I just can't bring myself to visit there anymore, too much negative energy in one place for me. Thanks for keeping us updated on Erik.

I totally agree with you s1. Will, do you think Erik would come over to RFF to visit? Cool if he would! (Heck, maybe RFF is one of the forums he has already visited? )

After reading about Erik, I like him...so far! He has a positive attitude, and seems to be caring, perceptive & ambitious. A good looker too!

Hey Will, maybe you need to invite Erik to visit RFF. We're much nicer to hang out with (and less scary) than the sucky site. I just can't bring myself to visit there anymore, too much negative energy in one place for me. Thanks for keeping us updated on Erik.

I totally agree with you s1. Will, do you think Erik would come over to RFF to visit? Cool if he would! (Heck, maybe RFF is one of the forums he has already visited? )

After reading about Erik, I like him...so far! He has a positive attitude, and seems to be caring, perceptive & ambitious. A good looker too!

I would expect though, that like TAR, they are not allowed to post on a forum until after the show finale.

But they can just read forums to see what's going on as Eric mentions:

"On another note, one of the most fun things to watch is the spoiler forums. Before I applied for the show I went on a lot of fan forums myself, and tried to predict how the seasons would play out. Now, being on the inside, its very fun to watch the forums try and put the pieces together from the season. I feel a bit like God watching his children discover things for the first time and make mistakes for the first time.It makes me laugh."

James and Parvati called him the dumbest Survivor ever. So what does Erik have to say for himself? Does he agree? Can he at least laugh about it? And what was he thinking?! Erik answers all the hard questions right here in this exclusive RealityNewsOnline interview!

As with Jason, I knew we had some tough questions for Erik. And I let him know up front that these wouldn’t just be softballs. But Erik handled the interview well and even laughed at times about what happened. Read on to see what he had to say.

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Erik, and thanks for taking the time to talk to RealityNewsOnline! You seem like a nice guy, but as I told Jason when I interviewed him, I have a few uncomfortable questions for you, and people want to know. We’ll start with the obvious question: Why did you do it?!

Erik: Well, there is no one answer; there’s no genius answer that will make it all make sense. When I talked to James about his blunder after all of this was done, he said had this moment where he faded out and made an error. Mine was more trying to feel out people in terms of their emotions and strategy. It bit me in the ass in the end.

From a strategic point of view, my thought at the time was [I couldn’t win]if I made it to the end with two girls next to me because the girls had the majority on the jury. They didn’t show too much of Cirie talking me into this harebrained scheme – they showed a lot of Natalie – but they were talking to me about being a bloc of three because we had talked about Amanda and Parvati going all the way to the end. I thought it would have been beneficial from their point of view to come with me. That was one of the major strategy things I thought would happen – I thought it would be beneficial to them to do that.

In terms of what else was going on, they didn’t show a lot of this, but I was pretty emotionally distraught for a while. Amanda was livid with me, she was angry one day and driving me crazy the next day. All the girls were against me, which I hadn’t experienced until then. I was like, why do my friends hate me?

RNO: You saw what happened to Jason – he trusted the very same people when they told him he didn’t need to play his immunity idol, and was sent packing. How could you trust them?

Erik: A very good question. They didn’t show this either, but I had made an apology to Natalie and I had talked to her right before the immunity challenge, because she told me, “You are a dumbass – we could have done this together. You just spit in my face.” There was a huge scene where we were talking and I was apologizing and I thought we had made peace there.

Natalie is one of the most underestimated Survivors in terms [of being manipulative]. When she told me the plan, I said there is no way in hell. But by the end of the day she had worked me over and I had done a 180. I got played, she’s very good.

One other thing I have to mention is that with Cirie – those were the two people who I feel pulled this on me, Cirie and Natalie – I thought Cirie’s word was good, which is ridiculous watching the season. Up to that point, I had not seen Cirie lie; either I was in a different place when it happened [or I just didn’t see it]. She kept her word with Jason when I thought everybody would vote him out. Every time I talked to her previously, she kept her word, and she said she guaranteed she wouldn’t vote for me, “When have I ever done wrong on you?” And then she did wrong on me.

RNO: You’re a huge fan of the show, so what would you have said if you saw somebody else do what you did?

Erik:(Laughs) I would have been screaming. I was telling everybody before, I was the kid on the couch telling people on the screen, “You’re an idiot.” I turned into the idiot who’s doing that. It’s such a reversal. You could have never gotten me to do that if I were in my right mind. The game is totally different. Everyone who’s sitting on the couch saying, “I can play this game better,” you have no idea what you’re talking about until you’re out there.

RNO: What did you think of James’ comment that he was no longer the dumbest Survivor ever and Parvati’s comment when she cast her vote saying that you were?

Erik: (Laughs) I have to agree. Biggest blunder ever. I have the crown. And James yesterday gave me a big hug – he was like, “Thank you sir, thank you little boy, thank you for taking the crown.” You have to laugh or else you’re going to cry, there’s no other way to get around it.

RNO: Going back to the beginning, what was your strategy coming into the game?

Erik: My strategy coming in was you need to adapt to people and situations. You need to go in with a clean slate and not have any preconceived notions and look at what’s happening and adjust to it. It was a very passive, under the radar game, but it worked for a great deal of the game. And on top of that, I wanted to be friendly. That comes naturally to me and you have to go with that. Whatever you do naturally well, you should work into your plan when you’re on the show.

RNO: How did your strategy change along the way?

Erik: At certain times I needed to be more aggressive, obviously when the Ami situation came. I had a few days where I was going back and forth and looking at options with Ami. Ozzy was a major ally with that. The women wanted me out and he didn’t. Ozzy was the one who kept me in the game, he was the one who saved me.

RNO: On your final episode, when you were telling all the different stories to the different women, what was your actual plan at that point?

Erik: Everyone came to me and I didn’t want to tell them nothing because they’d assume the worst. So I told them each what they wanted to hear, which was probably the dumbest thing I could have done. I wanted to take Natalie or Parvati to the end, because I thought Parvati would get no votes, and Cirie would get fewer because of whatever reason at the time.

RNO: Why didn’t you think Parvati would get votes?

Erik: She screwed over James pretty bad and made him feel like a fool because he found out after Ozzy was gone that Parvati didn’t give a $#!t for him. And she screwed over Ozzy very bad. And Amanda felt like she was out in the cold too. I thought Parvati was a good choice because she had a lot of enemies.

RNO: Why did you take Amanda with you on the reward, especially after your discussions with Natalie?

Erik: Natalie wanted to go to Exile Island. She said, “If I can’t go to Exile Island, I’d like to go on reward.” But I didn’t do any of that – I totally messed up in terms of Natalie. Amanda really had an emotional hold over me, she played me very well. We were in the alliance with Ozzy and over the days, she just had an emotional hold over me and she was one of my best friends out there, which is why I ended up taking her.

RNO: Looking back, why do you think the women were able to manipulate you the way they did?

Erik: I was going crazy. There’s no one answer that can explain it, but I was stuck on that island with those women and it was driving me insane. I was on an island full of beautiful sexy Survivor women and then it all started to go to hell. I thought if I won immunity I could hang out ‘til the end – but then everyone came at me. I had to change from my defensive position to be aggressive and make choices and be the leader. I started making huge dumb mistakes because that’s not what my game was at the time. It just destroyed me.

RNO: How did you feel watching the show last night?

Erik: I was a little concerned about what the women were saying about me. I had no idea that Natalie was behind me the entire time [when I was talking to Cirie]. Shame on me. I had no idea she was back there. There was a feeling of, you had everything, you could have gone all the way. It just sucks. I had to laugh at it and say, “Oh my god, you pretty much built the worst failure ever. We’re just going to throw it all away.”

RNO: What do you feel you learned as a fan of the show that you took with you into the game?

Erik: Before the show, I pretty much learned you have to try to not judge people and not have any preconceived notions that will alter your ability to play the game. You have to be open to new possibilities and new paths to choose and talking to new people. The people who are out quickly are usually very aggressive and very domineering, with some exceptions like Tom from Palau. You just have to… unless you’re the absolute best at manipulating people and winning, you’re going to be seen as a threat and targeted. I was just trying to be unthreatening.

RNO: Who was the absolute best at manipulating people this time?

Erik: I would say it’s a very close call between Cirie and Parvati.

RNO: In your final words, you talked about rubbing shoulders with previous Survivors who acknowledged you. And before that, you excitedly pointed out Jeff Probst to your brother. Do you think hero worship negatively affected your game play?

Erik: There’s no question it affected my game play. These guys are like gods to me. When Jeff Pobst called me, that was like, it’s crazy. It definitely put blinders on me for certain things. Like I took their word more than the Fans at times – you can especially see that with Natalie. You have Natalie who’s just a Fan with me and Amanda from China. Obviously that skewed my judgment.

RNO: What was the most eye-opening thing you saw on TV that you didn’t know about while you were there?

Erik: I would say the way Parvati played the game. In general, the way she played and manipulated, I didn’t get to see that a lot because I was on Malakal, which was losing out of its mind. I didn’t see that there were a lot of women over there [that she was controlling] once Jonathan was gone – it was crazy, she’s doing amazing.

RNO: Do you have anything else you’d like to tell us about your time on Survivor?

Erik: I just want to say – I’m from a small town. People just don’t understand how much this game means outside the strategy. I just had a great time. I had an amazing time out there that I can’t explain. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had, the most difficult experience I’ve ever had. I wouldn’t give it up for the world.

RNO: Thanks again, Erik, and good luck when Jeff Probst is certain to bring up some of these same questions in Sunday’s live reunion!

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.